Thursday, August 27, 2009

ADDICTION TO NICOTINE - SOME PARALLELS TO NARCOTIC ADDICTION:

An article in the current issue of Lancet by JD Pollack and colleagues notes that of the estimated 45 million American smokers, over 43% had tried to quit during the past 12 months. Of those who tried to quit on their own, 80% relapsed within one month and only 3% were abstinent at 6 months. The results were better with pharmacotherapy, but "only 15-35% ... were able to remain abstinent for more than a year." Interestingly, there is no mention of anything less than total smoking abstinence - smokers who cut down from, say, two packs a day to five cigarettes apparently were not distinguished from those who never cut down consumption at all.

It is an annual, of up to 1 meter of height, little graft plant, with the oblong leaves, sinuosodentadas in the edges, with the petals of several colors, targets, pink, red and violets, this indicates findrxonline in article, with a dark spot in the base. The fruit is a capsule of good size. It is spread by the south of Europe, North Africa, central and South Asia and America. It exists in the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to the narcotic, another plant with similar effects, the Chelidonium majus, well-known with the names of golondrinera grass or the wanderers, verruguera grass and celidueña. Latex removes rarely from the incisions of the immature fruits and of other parts of the plant. This latex coagulates in contact with the air. The opium is a mixture of ranges, different resins, sugars and other substances, between which 20 have pharmacological activity, almost all alkaloids like: morphine, codeine, thebaine, narcobathtub, narceína and papaverina; most important of all of them it is the morphine, contained in the opium in variable proportion (3-22 %) and to which it confers his main qualities.